Girl in the Dark (20 page)

I'd been afraid he'd ask that question.

“Aren't there any photos of them?” I asked, cowardly.

He shook his head.

“So sorry. I'll bring you a picture of them the next time. I promise, okay?”
How could I tell him they were dead?

“Great job,” said Mo. “Really, it went well.”

We were threading our way through the institute's endless corridors. “You think so? There are cement gnomes that are easier to talk to than him.”

“He doesn't tell the shrink very much, either. He just isn't very talkative.”

“I wish I could ask my mother if he's always been this way. But she refuses to talk about him.”

“It isn't that unusual, you know. Most of our patients have problematic relationships with their families. There's often too much shame involved. On both sides.”

I thought about my mother. I could understand she might have been ashamed that she'd been unable to deal with her own son. But I couldn't understand the way she had so radically turned her life around after dumping Ray at the Mason Home. She had simply erased him and started over again.

“You're quiet,” Mo remarked. We were nearly at the exit.

“I've got a lot to think about.”

“I know. Not only do you suddenly have a brother you'd like to get to know, but I imagine you're now not sure who your mother is, either.”

I looked at him, startled. “You're right.”

“If you want to talk about it, you know where to find me.”

I walked down the stairs and into the living room. Rosita was sitting on the couch watching TV with her arm around Anna. They were watching this yellow rabbity creature that couldn't even talk normal. I couldn't stand it, this
Pick
-
hatchoo
thing or whatever it was called, and his annoying buddies with the big buggy eyes. They gave me a headache.

When I got to the bottom of the stairs I just stood there, not knowing what to do next. What Rosita had done wasn't normal. I was sure of that. She could call me “silly” all she liked, but what
she
had done was completely cuckoo. Should I say something to her? Was I supposed to ask her how she was? Or should I act angry? I didn't know what to do.

I thought about what Margaret used to tell me in the bakery. “You should go by your gut feelings,” she'd say. “Your own gut knows best.” What my gut was telling me right then was that my penis hurt. What on earth did that tell me?

I caught sight of the picture of Rosita in the nude. It made me even more worried and confused than before, now that I knew what lurked between her legs.

“Ray?” said Rosita without turning to look at me. Her head
didn't move even a fraction. “I think you should go home.” On the television the spiky yellow thing and his white, rosy-cheeked buddies were fighting a dragon. They were firing lightning bolts out of their fingertips.

I'd opened my mouth, my lips moved, but the voice coming out of me was my mother's. “Look at me when you're talking to me!”

“Excuse me?”

You were supposed to look people in the eye. That was the right thing to do. I'd had it hammered into me ever since I was little, when I'd still lived at home. The shrink at school kept telling me the same thing. Even Rosita said it.

“You heard me.”

“Hey, cool it!” Now she did turn and look at me. It struck me that she was even paler than before she'd started pulling down her pants . . . Even her lips were white.

“You tilt my chin up when I forget to look at you. And now you just sit there watching that stupid
Pokémon
while you're talking to me.”

“I tilt your chin up to make you stop staring at my tits.” Nobody spoke for a moment. Then she sighed. “Ray, I'm sorry, I shouldn't have let that happen. Please, just go home. Tomorrow we'll see each other for a cup of coffee, and everything will be back to normal again.”

“I won't leave.”

Rosita turned her entire body toward me, so that Anna almost toppled over. Her eyes drilled into mine. “Eyes are the mirrors of the soul.” That's another thing Margaret used to say. But I didn't see any soul. All I saw was a dull sort of brown.

Making eye contact had always been a big problem for me, but that day I could have kept it up for hours. Or maybe it
was
hours that we sat staring at each other.

In the end I won.

“Go ahead, stay there if you like, see if I care.” Rosita turned back to the television and turned up the volume.

I covered my ears. The squeaky voices of Piki-doodoohead-hatchoo and his pals were driving me crazy—like music, which I couldn't bear, either.

I stared out the window to make myself think of something else. It was already dark outside, but the backyard was lit by the street lamps. I could see the waterfall in the back corner. It splashed into a tiny pond that was shallow enough for birds to bathe in and for Anna not to drown in.

I thought about the past summer. I'd worked in her garden every day after work, ignoring my aching back. I wanted it to be perfect for Rosita. I wanted her to look outside and not feel so sad. And I wanted to be with her. That, especially. She stayed inside mostly, but when the weather was nice she'd come out and take in the sun on a lounge chair in her bikini. Those were the best days.

One day I looked up to see my mother standing there, right in Rosita's yard. I'd been planting shrubs when I heard her voice. “Ray! What are you doing out here?” She gave me such a turn that the spade clattered to the ground.

“You didn't tell me you were coming over.”

“Is that necessary? Why aren't you in your own house?”

“Because he's helping me in the garden,” said Rosita, who had stepped outside. “Maybe he'd do the gardening for you, too, if he had your address.” She was wearing short shorts and a sun hat. One of those big floppy hats. She'd said the hat was “totally J. Lo,” whatever that meant.

“Do you mind if I speak to my son in private?”

Rosita put her hands on her hips. “He's busy right now. And this is
my
backyard, so . . .”

“Come, we're going,” my mother said to me. “I don't have time for this.”

“I
do
have time for this,” said Rosita. “I've always wanted to ask you about your—how shall I say—unorthodox parenting.”

“Well! I don't think a child of four who's parked in front of the TV all day and still gets to sit in a stroller is an example of good parenting, actually.”

“You seem to be well informed,” said Rosita. “Great. Ray tells you everything, I see. Still, I
would
like to know why you hardly ever bother to see him. The poor kid doesn't even know who his father is. What's
that
all about?”

“I have absolutely no interest in this conversation. Perhaps you should go find yourself a job instead of meddling in other people's business. Come on, Ray, we're going.”

I was going to put the spade back in the shed and go with my mother, but Rosita stopped me. “Are you out of your mind? I want your mother to answer me. Why doesn't he have your address or phone number? Why?”

“Ray.” I knew that voice. It was the Last Warning voice. If I didn't listen to her she'd give me a spanking. She'd often had to spank me, even though I did try my best. “You're driving me nuts, Ray!” my mother would yell. “What am I supposed to
do
with you?”

At boarding school I'd learned to get better at controlling myself. We'd practiced with a stopwatch. I was allowed to draw pictures, and when the stopwatch beeped, I was supposed to stop. Then I was allowed to start again. Stop. Start again. Stop. And again and again and again.

“You're not going,” said Rosita. “You're not going with her until she gives you an answer. Do you hear me?”

I looked at my mother and then at Rosita and then at my
mother again. They were both angry. Eyebrows down, mouth straight across. What was I supposed to do? The stopwatch technique was useless. How was I supposed to choose?

I could think of only one thing to do. I ran. I dashed into the living room, where Anna greeted me with a happy “Ray!” down the corridor, out the front door, up the street. I ran all the way to the bakery, where I plopped down on the ground next to the Dumpster, and sat there until it was three
A.M.
and I could start my work shift.

It wasn't until I got home the next afternoon that I realized I'd forgotten to take care of the fish. It was the first and only time that had ever happened to me. I called out their names until I got calmer. Then I went over and brought Anna her madeleine.

I didn't hear from my mother for several weeks. When she finally came again, the gardening was done and she found me at my usual spot by the kitchen window, behind the red curtain. I didn't know if I was happy to see her or not.

My mother walked in, spread a new tablecloth on the table, rearranged the sofa cushions, and moved one of the plants. Then she said she wanted a cup of tea. If I'd known she was coming, I'd have brought home some
tartelettes.
All I had to offer her was a day-old brioche. I spread some butter on it and waited for her reaction.

She took a bite and chewed without changing her expression even one little bit. “That woman's no good,” my mother said with a mouthful of brioche. “She's just using you. Don't you see she's driving you crazy? Next she'll bleed you dry and then she'll dump you. Then you'll have a complete meltdown and end up in another institution. You don't want that, do you?”

“Well, if you really want to know, we're almost a family.”

“
I'm
your family. Do you hear that, Ray? I'm your family, and nobody else.”

“But you turned your back on me.” It was the very first time I'd ever said anything like it to my mother.

“
Excuse me
?” She didn't say anything for a moment and her face went all red. “Don't you
dare
say that again! Why do you think I'm here? I
am
still here, aren't I?” A tear rolled down her cheek. “I love you, Ray. Don't you ever forget that I'm the only one who really loves you.”

Standing with my hands over my ears on the bottom step of Rosita's staircase without really knowing why, I wondered if my mother had been right after all. I stared at the back of Rosita's head—she was watching something else, some dumb talk show—and was overcome with the urge to hurt her. Again I remembered what Margaret used to say. Go by your gut feelings. But I knew it wasn't right to hurt someone. I may not be normal, but I'm not crazy.

I removed my hands from my ears and said, “I've got to go take care of the fish.”

No one replied, so I just left. I didn't even shut the door behind me. Let
her
have to do it.

“Did you know that if Rosita were alive she'd have been a millionairess?” I asked my mother.

She was standing in the kitchen preparing a casserole. Aaron was sitting on the sofa (protected with a quilt again, naturally) watching the fish. The news out of Utrecht was that the demise of King Kong and Hannibal was being attributed to some unknown organism. They were sending out a crew to take samples of the water and to observe the other fish. Apparently the deaths were a rather singular occurrence in the world of fish diseases.

My mother was in the process of fanatically slicing boiled potatoes into precise slivers and arranging these in a glass baking dish, alternating with layers of eggplant and tomato. It was a dish she often made. It was a bit like moussaka, although my mother denied any resemblance.

“Apparently Rosita's mother had an uncle in England who made a killing in the poultry business. He left Rosita two million pounds.”

“Now
that's
what you'd call dumb luck,” my mother said testily. “Can't we please talk about something else?”

“
No,
why?”

My mother scattered grated cheese over the casserole with short, irritable gestures.

“We're not done talking about it,” I went on. “I've only just taken on this case, and already all these intriguing facts have started coming out. Want to know who's inheriting Rosita's two million pounds? You have three guesses.”

My mother slid the casserole in the oven and slammed the oven door shut. “I'm not in the mood for guessing games, and I'm not in the mood for having this conversation.”

“Her stepfather. Normally, her daughter, Anna, would have inherited all of it. But she isn't alive, either. The next legal heir would have been Rosita's mother. Also deceased. So who's left? Rosita's stepfather. He and her mother were legally married, therefore all her assets go to him.
Ka-ching
!”

“So then marry the guy.”

“He's closer to your age than mine, Mother. All I'm trying to tell you is that someone stood to profit from Rosita's death. And even though I admit it's pretty unlikely that Ray wasn't the one to kill her, I still think we owe it to him to look into it.”

My mother went into the living room. She suddenly got very busy tidying Aaron's toys.

“I just want to know what really happened. Can you blame me?”

My mother gave me an exasperated look and began tossing handfuls of Legos into the designated bin.

I kneeled down next to her to help. “What do you know about that Rosita, anyway?”

“Iris . . . I've had enough. For the last time, change the subject.”

“Come on, help me out here. Please. Did you ever meet her? According to the woman across the street, you used to show up at Ray's place every so often.”

“I saw her a few times.”

“And?”

“What do you want me to say? A cunning little bitch. That's what she was. She knew exactly how to get whatever she wanted out of Ray.”

“Like what?”

My mother got to her feet, sighing with annoyance. “I just told you, I'm not in the mood for this line of questioning. If all you want to do is whine about Ray, then don't come here anymore.” She opened the cupboard to get the dishes out.

“I understand it upsets you that I keep harping on it. But can't you at least explain to me why you never told me about Ray? And why you no longer want to have anything to do with him? After all, he still is your son . . .”

My mother whipped around to face me. “I don't owe you an explanation, Iris. You have no idea what I went through with Ray. No idea.”

“Then
give
me an idea. Because believe me, I'll keep bugging you until you give me an answer.”

My mother sighed demonstratively.

“
What
did you go through, then? What was Ray like as a child?”

My mother put her hands on her hips. “Ray was a runaway train that couldn't be stopped, not even with the best will in the world. I just couldn't manage him. He was impossible. He was always breaking things, pooped all over the house, even when he was eight, and could spend hours on end banging his head against the wall.” She rattled off the facts as if she'd learned them by heart.

“That must have been awful for you, Mother.” I really meant it.

She went on in a quieter voice. “I could never predict what would set him off. He'd come out with this ear-splitting scream
and keep it up for so long that it drove me up the wall. It was like living with some wild animal. Although he could also be very sweet. He'd sit and play with his Legos for hours, and he loved to draw. Beautiful drawings of birds or spaceships, extremely detailed. But then if I told him it was time to put the crayons away, he'd have a tantrum.”

I looked at Aaron, who was still staring at the aquarium with empty, faraway eyes. I could picture him tumbling through space, way out beyond the Milky Way, among the millions of distant suns and their orbiting moons.

“And then all the problems with the other kids. The daily fights. Because teasing Ray always produced great results. You can't imagine how aggressive he could be. You don't even want to know how many times I had to humble myself and say I was sorry. ‘You've got to be stricter with him,' I'd hear from Grandpa. ‘Discipline him, give him a good spanking if he refuses to listen.' And from the neighbors: ‘Single mother, no idea how to cope.' I kept punishing him, I yelled, begged, wept, bribed, ignored, smacked him, beat him, hit him hard, too hard, even . . . It was a nightmare.”

There was something uncomfortably familiar about my mother's story. I, too, was often made to feel I was a failure at child rearing, in spite of all the well-intentioned advice.

“When it all got too much for me, I sent him to the Mason Home, a boarding institution for difficult children. That was”—my mother swallowed painfully—“after he killed a dog.”

Hearing it from my mother felt different than hearing it from Detective De Winter. I could sense the horror, the shame and frustration lurking beneath my mother's words. How would I feel if Aaron did such a thing?

“The neighbors' dog,” my mother went on. “It was scary. That
he was capable of killing was bad enough. But even more worrying was the fact that he didn't seem at all aware that he'd done something wrong. It was then that I realized Ray was a threat to society. And that I no longer could be responsible for him.” She gave me a tremulous smile. “There, now I've told you.”

My mother and I rarely touched. But on an impulse I threw my arms around her and we hugged for a while. It was an awkward moment, but we somehow managed to get through it.

“What you doing?” asked Aaron from his perch on the sofa.

My mother and I quickly let go, as if we'd been caught in some perverted act.

“We're having dinner soon, my darling,” said my mother, walking over to him and running a hand through his hair. It always astonished me how easy it was for her to show affection to Aaron, as opposed to the obvious difficulty she had being affectionate with me. “How are the fishes doing?”

“Venus is acting funny,” said Aaron.

Venus was a Brazilian basslet: fuchsia in front and bright yellow in back. She and Peanut, her mate, spent most of their time in the grotto, a plastic contraption encrusted with coral and anemones. In spite of her bright coloring, Venus was a small fish that was easy to overlook.

Now she was floating at the surface, her mouth wide open. The same pose in which I had found King Kong. She was still alive, but the question was for how much longer.

“God, those wretched fish,” said my mother. “What do we do now?”

“Add antibiotics to the water?”

My mother shook her head and walked over to the sideboard. “I'll just make a note to call Utrecht tomorrow, or I'll forget. If my head weren't attached to my body, I'd forget to take it along one of these days. It's taking me such effort to focus lately.”

“Well, Ray would love to take care of them again.”

“Can't you just see it? This enormous tank in a cell?” My mother put her pen down, a garish gold fountain pen.

“It's possible he'll get out in the near future.”

“Are you still insisting on going on with that ridiculous nonsense?”

“I am.”

“You
know
it's pointless.”

“Most of the cases I deal with are pointless, Mother.”

We heard a
ping
from the kitchen. The not-quite-moussaka casserole was done.